1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the destruction of waste material and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to the disposal of toxic, radioactive and hazardous wastes and poison gas streams through thermal scission of compounds and chemical recombination of molecules.
2. Description of Related Art
A number of methods for disposing of toxic or hazardous wastes are known in the art. Waste disposal systems using chemical detoxification, incineration and pyrolytic destruction have achieved varying degrees of success.
By virtue of extremely high temperatures, pyrolytic destruction is capable of breaking down even very stable molecules of waste material. A pyrolytic system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,877, issued to. Barton et al. In the Barton system, waste is fed into a plasma arc burner, and then discharged into a reaction chamber to be cooled and recombined into products of gas and particulate matter. The recombined products are passed through a spray ring, which quenches and neutralizes the recombined products with an alkaline spray.
Another pyrolytic system is disclosed in U.S. Patent No. 4,509,434, issued to Boday et al. In this system, fluid waste is atomized by a plasma burner and water is introduced into the plasma to promote the formation of hydrogen halogenides if the waste material contains halogens. Atomized gases are then deacidified and washed.
Yet another system employing plasma pyrolysis is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,001, issued to Chang et al. In the Chang system, a mixture of waste and water is injected into a plasma torch to produce product gases and particulate. The product gases are sprayed in a scrubber with a caustic solution to neutralize the acidity of the product gases.
In each of these systems, the products of pyrolysis are neutralized after exiting the plasma arc vessel. Further, the products in these systems are neutralized with a spray from a spray ring or from nozzles in a scrubber.